Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Samuel 8-11.

When I read about King David’s conquests of the surrounding kingdoms I debate in my head between two theories I have about what he was doing.  The one that came to me is that King David was protecting the merchant caravans, similar to the way he had protected Nabal’s shepherds when he was on the run from King Saul.  In that theory, the neighboring kingdoms profited from raiding merchant caravans.  My second theory is that, instead, David conquered the surrounding lands in order to seize control of the caravan routes as far as he could.  I think the first theory better explains why he did not attack the Ammonites until they provoked him.

Today was the first time that it occurred to me that the reason that King David did not lead his army against the Ammonites was that the war against the Ammonites was not part of the strategy that led him to conquer his other neighbors.  In any case, staying home while he sent the army out to fight was a mistake, perhaps even a sin.  I believe that the writer of this passage felt the same way.  He expresses his judgement on King David for not leading his army by writing, “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out…”  The writer follows that up with recording Uriah’s reason for not going home to his wife.  All of this leads me to my main point on this: if King David had been doing what he ought to have been doing, leading his army in war, he would not have been tempted to do, and thus would not have done it, what he should not have done, sleeping with another man’s wife.  In the same way, if we fill our time with doing the things which we ought to be doing, the things which God desires us to do, we will not fall into temptation

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.